


Getting Handsy

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Massage, Misuse of Biotics, True Love, bc they're huge nerds, ironically they mostly do sfw things with it, like. SO much fluff, shiro's new absurdly large hand, that's a mass effect tag but it works ok, who also love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:59:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: “It’s pretty big,” Keith says, inspecting the new arm critically.Shiro coughs. The glint in Keith’s eye is making him nervous. “Yeah, I guess so…”“I could probably sit on it,” Keith continues.Shiro chokes on his own spit. “Nngh?” he says, eloquently.Keith looks up, nonplussed. “You know,” he explains, “like, I could sit on it, and you could punch really hard and make it fly across the room like a rocket launcher.”





	Getting Handsy

**Author's Note:**

> this was from a follower milestone prompt request on [my tumblr](http://saltyshiro.tumblr.com/), i hope y'all enjoy reading this silly fic as much as i enjoyed writing it!

“It’s pretty big,” Keith says, inspecting the new arm critically.

Shiro coughs. The glint in Keith’s eye is making him nervous. “Yeah, I guess so…”

“I could probably sit on it,” Keith continues.

Shiro chokes on his own spit. “Nngh?” he says, eloquently.

Keith looks up, nonplussed. “You know,” he explains, “like, I could sit on it, and you could punch really hard and make it fly across the room like a rocket launcher.”

They’re not on the same page, here, and Shiro honestly isn’t sure if Keith’s idea is better or worse than his. “I don’t even know if the neural connection extends that far,” he protests weakly. 

“Then we should try it,” Keith declares. “What could go wrong?”

“I mean...a lot,” Shiro points out. “A lot could, potentially, go wrong.”

Keith gives him a flat look. “You encouraged me to drive my hoverbike off a cliff when I was a teenager, Shiro. How is this less dangerous?”

“Point taken.” Shiro sighs. “Alright, well, I mean...is this room big enough?” They’re standing in an empty aircraft hangar, where they were _ supposed _ to be inspecting it as a new hangar for the Lions. As usual when they’re with each other, they got distracted. 

“We should probably go outside,” Keith says.

“Where everyone can see us?” 

Keith rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine. The hangar is probably big enough.”

“It’s still not very safe,” Shiro hedges.

Keith sighs, stalks over to a workbench, and picks up an abandoned pair of plastic safety goggles. He slaps them on and raises an eyebrow. “Safety,” he says.

“Fine,” Shiro relents.

Keith grins and walks back over with a spring in his step. “Can you put your arm down?”

“Down…?  _ Oh.” _ Keith is slinging a leg over Shiro’s floating forearm. Shiro really hates that the arm is, in fact, big enough for Keith to straddle it somewhat comfortably. It looks a little awkward, but Keith determinedly hunches over and peers at Shiro over his shoulder. 

“Okay, see, this is cool,” Keith says. “Now, you try.”

Shiro wavers. “This is still a terrible idea,” he says, because if Keith gets hurt at least then Shiro can say  _ I told you so, _ and then settles back into a defensive stance, focusing on powering up the socket in a slowly growing warning whir of sound. He whips his arm back, impressed Keith manages to stay on, then with gritted teeth releases all of the stored up energy in a deafening blast of blue electricity. 

It’s  _ amazing.  _

Keith zooms across the hangar at a speed previously unknown to mankind, lightning arcing through the air behind him. He looks like a witch on a broomstick, if the witch was dressed in a Garrison officer’s uniform and the broomstick was a military grade prosthetic arm that never needed to be as big as it is. But  _ god, _ is Shiro glad it’s as big as it is. 

Keith leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, and it’s probably a good thing there’s not much in the hangar, because dust billows outwards and upwards, an entire table goes flying through the air and smashes into smithereens against the opposite wall, and the unlucky metal husk of a fighter jet crumples pathetically at the blast wave’s impact. 

Thankfully, Shiro calculated right, and the energy runs out before Keith reaches the opposite wall. By the time he goes tumbling off with a shout, the arm is traveling at a nonlethal velocity. As it is, Keith lands hard, and Shiro is about to yank the arm back to him and jog over...but it’s a long distance, at least a hundred yards, and he’s got a better idea. 

Or worse idea.

The metal fingers grab Keith by the collar of his uniform like an oversized kitten, and Keith only has time to yelp, “Shiro, what – !” before Shiro sends the arm hurtling back towards him like a boomerang, or a very large, fairly deadly elastic band. Keith screeches and clings on for dear life, but Shiro is pretty sure he’s having fun. This is confirmed when a heavy bundle of shocked Keith careens into Shiro’s arms, or rather, arm, sending them both staggering and then falling backwards onto the ground, with Keith on Shiro’s chest. 

“Holy shit,” Keith wheezes. His hair is sticking up and his eyes are wide with a delight Shiro hasn’t seen in him for a long, long time. “That...was…”

“Fucking awesome?” Shiro finishes, heart pounding with excess adrenaline as the arm’s system cools down. 

Keith snorts, and then dissolves into full-blown giggles, collapsing onto Shiro and burying his face in Shiro’s jacket. “Fucking awesome,” he agrees. “Oh my god. We’re  _ officers,  _ Shiro.”

“We’re also having fun,” Shiro says, and the prosthetic pets Keith’s hair fondly. Keith leans into it, and shoots him a dopey smile. Shiro smiles back, and revels in the familiar warmth of Keith over him, chin resting against Shiro’s chest.

“We should go outside now and do it again,” Keith muses after a long and wonderful moment.

_ “Yes,” _ Shiro says with feeling, and helps him to his feet.

*

Iverson gives them an earful later when they show up twenty minutes late to their night meeting, covered in red desert dust and fresh bruises, but it’s totally worth it for the sound of Keith’s laughter, echoing in Shiro’s head like his favorite song long after it’s gone.

*

The next night, they end up in the desert again, at the edge of a familiar cliff. 

So many things have changed, but it’s good to know that this, at least, has stayed the same.

“Are you sure about this?” Shiro asks for the thousandth time. 

“Yes,” Keith says without hesitation. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Shiro sighs, and tries to stop himself from gripping the handlebars too hard as Keith accelerates towards the cliff. He knows, if they were caught out here, people wouldn’t understand why they’re putting themselves in danger to have fun. But they also wouldn’t understand what it’s like to live every day on the edge of danger, with the threat of it looming over your head at every waking moment.

It’s difficult to transition from soldier to civilian, even more difficult when you’ve been a soldier in space for years dealing with forces far beyond your control or understanding. They haven’t discussed it, but Shiro would bet anything Keith feels the same way – it’s unsettling to go from a hundred to zero overnight. Their expectation for danger is omnipresent, even if, for once, there is none. Safety has become strange.

So, this way, they’re choosing their own danger. Together.

Keith flies off the cliff’s edge, Shiro close behind. He brakes on the top of the cliff instead of following him over, and aims his hand for Keith before releasing it in the same thunderous crackle of noise as before. As if in reply, the clouded sky rumbles, and Shiro’s heart pounds in excitement. It’s the monsoon season, and the thought of a desert storm sends his arm flying faster, almost too fast when it connects with the bottom of Keith’s hoverbike and latches on. 

He’s far away, but Shiro, muscle straining, sees the moment Keith’s hoverbike wins against gravity and lifts, swooping gracefully out of its tailspin downwards and back up towards the dark sky. Outlined against the faint moonlight, Keith throws his arms up with a resounding whoop of joy, some strange creature soaring through the night, pale blue lightning all around him. 

Real lightning tears the sky open in the distance, over the silhouetted mesas and mountains, and the rain begins to fall. Shiro guides Keith down to the earth before following him over the cliff, with only one hand, and just a human one at that, to guide him. But then Keith shouts, “Shiro, your turn!” and waves Shiro’s hand at him with a blinding grin.

And how can Shiro say no to that?

The hand returns to him, shoving up under his hoverbike, and Shiro’s breath is stolen by the sudden jolt and gain in altitude, wind whipping past him, rain splattering over his worn leather jacket as the storm picks up. He looks down at Keith, staring up at him with wide eyes full of lightning, and just like that his breath is stolen again.

It has nothing to do with the wind.

*

“Keith, you should really sit up,” Shiro says, studying him across the desk, lips pursed. Keith is hunched over his paperwork like a particularly pouty gargoyle, and glares at Shiro like one, too.

“Shiro,” he grits out, “now is really not the time for your nagging.”

Shiro lifts his hands in surrender. “Not nagging! Just...observing. Helpfully. You’re gonna get back problems with that posture.”

Keith grumbles something under his breath, and stretches, his spine popping audibly. They wince in unison. “Think I already have them,” Keith admits. “I don’t even remember the last time my back was this knotted up. It wasn’t even this bad after I slept in the Black Lion’s cockpit for a week straight.”

Shiro’s jaw clenches. “You did  _ what?” _

Keith coughs. “Nevermind. My back does hurt. So does my head. But this stupid paperwork has to get done; I’m not gonna leave an entire base without clearance for rations just because I need a massage or something.”

Shiro perks up. “A massage?” he says.

Oblivious, Keith continues, “Yes, but the Garrison isn’t exactly crawling with masseuses, and even if it was you know I’m not the best with strangers touching me, and –”

“What about if I use this?” Shiro’s right hand pops up helpfully, fingers wiggling. 

Keith turns red and his jaw drops. “Wow,” he says. “You really just offered to give me a massage with your magical floating hand?”

“I’m still offering,” Shiro says gently, even as his hand creeps across the table on two fingers, mimicking walking. “We can both keep doing our paperwork, and you can avoid a slipped disc.”

“That’s creepy,” Keith informs him, watching the crawling hand, but his expression is thoughtful. “Yeah. Okay. You can try it. But if it’s too distracting…”

Keith is  _ always _ distracting on some level, but Shiro doesn’t have the heart to tell him that. 

When the hand touches Keith’s back, Keith sighs at the contact, scooting forward in his chair to give Shiro space to work. He starts a new page of work as Shiro stretches the fingers over his shoulder blades, focusing on feeling for the tense muscles, digging in when he finds them and working his thumb and forefinger into the knotted tissue. Keith sighs again, louder and more content, and for a second he glances up, half-lidded eyes meeting Shiro’s. 

_ Thank you,  _ Keith mouths, and quietly goes back to work, rolling his shoulders into Shiro’s touch. 

Shiro may have accidentally given a few bases triple the rations they needed, but frankly it is unrealistic to expect him to do math when he can feel Keith’s rippling muscle under his fingertips.

*

“I mean, I want you to try it, at least,” Keith says stubbornly, sitting up on his elbows and peering at Shiro’s lubed up fingers. “I’m okay with it, really.”

Shiro puts his head in his other, non-lube-covered hand. “These are like, twice the size of my normal fingers,” he groans. “I don’t think…”

Keith shrugs. “So it’s just like starting with two. That’s fine. We’ve done that.”

“You could just fuck me instead?” Shiro suggests hopefully. 

Keith considers it for half a second, then sighs. “I’ve already done that, like, every time since we got back to Earth. You can’t run from this problem forever, Shiro.”  _ Read: oh my god, please just fuck me, we both know I’m going through withdrawal. _

“It’s not a problem! I can use my left hand –”

Keith’s glare silences him, and he winces. Yeah, fair point. He’s really awful at using his left hand for, uh...this. Ambidexterity has its limits. “You _ could, _ and  _ I _ could use my  _ own _ hands, but I’m asking you to  _ try _ with this one, Shiro. Please.”

“Okay,” Shiro finally says, chewing his lip. “If you’re sure.”

He’s very, very careful. Keith’s face still scrunches up, and his stomach flips. Shiro starts to pull it out, and Keith grabs his wrist instantly, shaking his head. “Uh-uh,” Keith grunts, and  _ oh,  _ his voice is uneven already. Shiro presses into him a little harder, and Keith’s mouth falls open in a sound he would probably call embarrassing but which Shiro can only describe as  _ hot. _

Shiro curls the thick metal finger and Keith  _ whines. _

“Huh,” Shiro whispers. “That’s new.”

“Not a word,” Keith warns, though it falls a little flat when he’s arching up into Shiro’s touch and all but verbally begging for more. Shiro, suddenly, wants to make him beg, and shifts over him, forcing Keith’s legs open wider. He pours more lube over his fingers, trying to ease in a second, and Keith pants, open-mouthed. He’s  _ so _ hard, and Shiro wants to make him come so, so badly.

He leans down, emboldened by Keith’s honest pleasure, and lets his teeth graze the flushed shell of Keith’s ear. “I’m not gonna fuck you,” Shiro tells him, soft and private. “I think I’m just gonna use my fingers tonight, baby. What do you think?” 

Keith shudders without an ounce of protest and whispers, “Yes,” squirming under him.

“Yes, what?” Shiro needles, letting the second finger rub and press, but not breach.

Keith shakes his head. “You’re a menace,” he hisses, gritting his teeth. 

Shiro wonders if he can get those teeth to sharpen into fangs, again. Preferably in a kinder way than a sword fight. Or maybe in a  _ different  _ sort of sword fight. 

_ Another day, Takashi.  _ They have time now, for that...for rain checks and other days. The thought is almost unbelievable. Almost. It’s easier to believe they made it this far when he’s looking at Keith. Everything is easier when he’s looking at Keith.

“I’m also your boyfriend, lucky you,” Shiro chuckles, still braced over him, still teasing, shoving aside the tangled emotion. 

“I  _ am  _ lucky,” Keith says then, earnestly, and Shiro falters, emotion rushing right back to him faster than the rocketing arm, his elbow almost giving out from under him where he’s braced over Keith on the bed. 

“Oh,” Shiro says.

Keith’s eyebrows draw together. “Oh?”

“I think I changed my mind,” Shiro says breathlessly, “because I need to be inside of you, like, yesterday.”

_ “Oh,” _ Keith says, happily, and kisses him in enthusiastic agreement.

*

Shiro wakes up with Keith wrapped around his arm like a sexy octopus.

_ No, nope, bad thought.  _ Keith is not an octopus. Keith is a Keith, and Shiro loves him very much.

God, Shiro’s coffee dependence has hit him full force since their return to Earth and his body’s rediscovery of the dual blessing and curse of caffeine. Groggily, he tries to sit up, but freezes halfway – if he moves, he’ll wake up Keith. Keith is the Universe’s lightest sleeper, other than Shiro, and he needs all the rest he can get these days. 

Also, after last night.

Carefully, he tries to extricate Keith’s arms from around his arm, but it’s a futile mission, and when Keith’s nose wrinkles and his fingers twitch, Shiro backs off. Hm. Well...he doesn’t really  _ need _ his right arm. Right? He has lots of meetings today, but those don’t require having two arms. 

Currently, Keith requires the arm a lot more. A  _ lot _ more. It definitely has nothing to do with how appallingly adorable Keith looks curled up against it, cheek smushed against the warm metal, ruffled hair soft against Shiro’s finger sensors when they curl through it…

Come to think of it, he might as well test this thing’s control radius. He latches onto the solid excuse, kisses Keith on the head, and gets ready for the day, petting Keith’s hair from the other room while he makes a pot of coffee.

When he’s putting on his shoes, he freezes at the sudden and unmistakable sensation of someone kissing his palm, then nuzzling into it, followed by the soft vibrations of continuing snores.

Shiro muffles his garbled sound into his palm. Keith. Just kissed. His hand.  _ In his sleep.  _

Shiro thinks he might cry. This is the best day of his life.

Iverson gives him an earful again, but Shiro’s too busy savoring the sensation of Keith’s soft, warm face cradled in his hand half a mile away to hear a single word. 


End file.
